dj bean

This is the 2011-12 Bruins' version of a slump

It’s official: With the losing streak having reached one game, the Bruins are slumping.

Slumping by the 2011-12 Bruins’ standards, anyway. They have lost two of their last three games, and are 5-4-0 in their last nine contests. Yet it’s hard to judge whether the B’s are off their 'A' game by simply looking at wins and losses.

Take this for starters: The team that had an insane plus-71 goal differential earlier in the month has been outscored by its opponents over its last six games.

What makes this Bruins team so special is the fact that when the B's don’t have it, they usually win. There have been plenty of instances this season. Take the Dec. 14 win over the Senators. The B’s had six shots on goal in the first period, allowed nearly 50 in the game, and failed to draw a single penalty. And they won, 5-2, on the road. The overtime win in Phoenix was a similar case. Clear off-night, yet two points.

When the Bruins found a way to escape Monday night with a win over the Panthers despite allowing four breakaways, it was more of the same. More often than not, when the Bruins have had nights where they collectively don’t have it, they’ve had someone bail them out. On Monday, it was both Tuukka Rask and Patrice Bergeron.

Tuesday, there was nothing or no one to bail them out of their careless play in the first and third periods. It was a night when there was no hero, just a rare loss for the team that’s been the best in the NHL since the beginning of November.

Going back to Saturday’s loss in Carolina, it’s now been three off-nights in a row for the Bruins. Maybe it’s complacency after being invincible for two straight months, or maybe it’s fatigue. At the very least, it’s sloppy, and it’s uncharacteristic of what the Bruins have been for the majority of this season.

"I would say our work ethic, our compete level isn't there,” Claude Julien told reporters after Tuesday’s loss in Tampa. “We're no better and no worse than any other team when we don't compete. We become a very ordinary team, and that's what we are right now."

Julien even said that he felt the team’s goaltending was “OK,” which, though accurate given that Tim Thomas had one of his rare rough games, was surprising to hear the coach say.

Yet when things aren’t going well, Julien isn’t afraid to call it like he sees it. The coach called Nathan Horton out after Monday’s win, and Horton was one of the few players to come out strong Tuesday. Horton notched his 15th and 16th goals of the season, though his line with David Krejci and Milan Lucic was, for the second straight night, on the ice for multiple goals from the opponent (two on Monday, three on Tuesday).

Even Tyler Seguin, who has put together a fine sophomore season but still needs to mature as a player, was guilty of a textbook dive Tuesday that cost the Bruins a power play and a chance at taking the lead midway through the third period. The Bruins are used to being the accusers, not the accused, in that department, so the play proved to be just another moment in the last few games in which Bruins fans had reason to be confused by what they were watching.

The good news for the B’s is that they have just four games left before the majority of the squad gets six days off for the All-Star break. While Julien, Thomas, Seguin and Zdeno Chara are in Ottawa for the All-Star Game, the rest of the roster can rest and recharge the batteries for the final 35 regular season games and playoff run.

Some players look like they could use the break more than others. Joe Corvo has had a very rough go of it of late, posting a minus-4 over his last four games and receiving just 12:39 of ice time Tuesday. To put that in context, that’s his second-lowest total of the season, and just one second more than Daniel Paille received. Paille obviously was one of the better Bruins on the ice Tuesday, but when a top-four defenseman plays essentially the same amount of time as a fourth-line winger/penalty killer, that doesn’t look great for the defenseman in question.

Of course, the lowest point of Corvo’s night Tuesday came in the third period, when, with the teams tied at two goals apiece, Corvo’s attempt at breaking it out along the boards was intercepted in the Boston zone by Nate Thompson. The turnover ended up costing the B’s, as Thompson threw the puck at multiple teammates in front of Thomas, and Ryan Malone buried it to give the Lightning a 3-2 lead.

This “slump,” if that’s what you want to call it, has also given the season a somewhat normal feel for the first time since the B’s began their title defense. This season has either been loss after loss (October) or win after win (everything since), with there really no normal lulls that usually happen plenty of times a season. Yes, the B’s lost two consecutive games last month, but this is worse. See that stat about the goal differential.

Bruins fans have seen just how good the B’s can be this season. Right now, they’re seeing the worst of it. The fact that it isn’t showing up in their record as much as it should says something about how much of a leg up they have on skill and depth alone.

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